GB News was halted for a breaking alert about prime minister Keir Starmer after Andy Burnham’s victory in the Makerfield by-election this morning. Anchor Martin Daubney was live on air chatting to Reform UK MP Lee Anderson via video link on the news programme, which led to a blistering attack on the sitting PM.

Daubney began with: “Lee, let’s start, if we can, with Sir Keir Starmer’s take on this by-election defeat. He says it shows that the tide is turning on Reform.” Anderson retorted: “Absolute rubbish, Martin. Just a couple of weeks back we swept the board in the local council elections in that area, and around the country. This by-election was a one-off. Sir Keir Starmer must be the only man in the country not to know what this actually means – it means the end of his term in Number 10.

“Obviously Andy Burnham is going to roll into Westminster next week, he’s got one thing on his mind, and that’s to take the keys off Sir Keir Starmer.”

He went on to say: “Now, Sir Keir Starmer… I fear for him at the moment, I don’t think he’s well. Because he is like a Japanese soldier wandering around the jungle 40 years after the war has finished, still fighting the battle.

“If he’s listening to this now, Sir Keir, please, please listen. Just go. Because your time is up. The self-proclaimed King of the North is coming down to take your throne.”

Daubney cut in with: “Well, apart from that you think a lot of the bloke! Let’s get to the next point, today he said – repeating something that Mike Tapper said before – Keir Starmer said ‘the Labour Party are the true patriots, Reform UK are the plastic patriots’.”

“I can see you smirking there, Martin, but everyone in the country knows what this by-election result means. People went out in Makerfield […] to get rid of Sir Keir Starmer.

“I don’t think [Starmer] realises how deeply unpopular he is, not just in Makerfield but around the country.”